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The city’s signature palm trees stand tall, while Easter eggs like the sweeping searchlights of a Hollywood premiere reveal themselves on a second glance.

It seemed they were coming from almost every direction, as searchlights raked the sky and skeins of orange tracer fire rose from air defence units stationed around the city.

The methods used by exasperated zoo-keepers included trying to dazzle the bird with a fire brigade searchlight before nabbing him when he was distracted.

"We have searchlights on all night to try to see ice - it can come from nowhere," he explains.

The task is a bit like discerning a field of fireflies around a central, massive searchlight.